Forever
by Eurothrashed
Summary: Promises of forever and the brevity of reality. MirokuxKagome COMPLETE


Title: Forever

Author: Eurothrashed

Feedback: Yes, please. E-mail in bio.

Disclaimer: Inuyasha isn't mine. But Miro-kun is. He lives in my closet with Fluffy-sama.

Rating: Pg13 - R

Summary: Promises of forever and the brevity of reality... M/K

A/N I got sidetracked from the S/K I was working on... really, really sidetracked.

* * *

Death is a dance. Kagome laughs, her body twisting and turning. None of her friends can hear the crazy, desperate melody that causes her to rush into another battle with nothing more than a second-hand bow and quiver of arrows. She's the weak one, after all; she's the one that is pushed to back by well-meaning hands, and protected. They all love her, so she doesn't deny them their little illusions. They need those well-rehearsed lies to keep them sane; they need their lies to keep going.

Naraku is evil; Kagome is weak. As long as they fight hard enough, love hard enough, and live like there will be a tomorrow, they will win.

Those are nice illusions to have, but things aren't so clear-cut anymore. Truth of it is, Kagome isn't sure that they had ever been.

She loves Inuyasha, but she kisses Miroku on lonely nights when the music gets too loud. She smiles when Sango asks her if she slept well, though what she really wants to do is let her smile crack and fall away under the weight of her guilt and grief.

The pinch of rosary beads clench on her thigh, leaving odd crescent shaped bruises that no one will see, and that soft eyes will silently beg forgiveness for. She arches under his touches, and cries out, praying to a god that she isn't even sure exists. Death is dancing with her tonight, cleverly housed in the palm of her lover's hand. Smiling lips curve, as sure movements gently coax her into screaming oblivion. He just smiles - always calm, always serene; always the last to give into the mindlessness that engulfs them. She wishes she could hate him. She wishes to could do more to love him. She wishes that she had never said yes... and then, she wishes she had said yes sooner.

"Life is what you make of it," he softly tells her. "If you don't make anything, you haven't truly lived, and that is the only real sin."

Miroku is the one that loves without hesitation. He is the one that sees a plain peasant girl and is able to turn her into a princess, even if it is only for a little while. He falls in love every day. He makes sure that he gives all of himself before it's time for him to move on.

"I love you," he says, his eyes so dark and frantic, that Kagome can't help but believe him. Yes, he loves her like she wishes Inuyasha would, he touches her like she wishes Inuyasha would, and he holds her when she cries because Inuyasha won't. He loves her, and makes her forget that her heart belongs to someone else.

In those moments, as she's swept away and can only hear his voice crying out her name and his body curling against her; she can fool herself into believing that she loves him, that she will always love him, and that love isn't a fickle, heartbreaking thing. In those moments, she can whisper dark, forbidden words of devotion and have them returned without hesitation.

In those moments, she can run her fingers through his sweat-damp hair and tell him her dreams.

Does Inuyasha even know that she dreams? That she thinks about wonderful, impossible things that make her smile and her heart lighten? Miroku does; he shares her smile, tightening his arms around her, but the night ends too soon, and he leaves, his face twisting up with a little boy's charm, and a grown man's carefully hidden surrender. His life is nothing but a bomb slowly ticking down to zero, no one knows if it's the red wire or the green wire. Yes, he is death and destruction with a pretty face and even prettier smile. For now, he is hers; he loves her, just like he loves life - unconditionally, and unrepentingly.

He savors every moment, every touch like the sake she scolds him for mixing with his tea - a tad too religiously.

"Aren't you supposed to be a man of religion?"

He's an incurable mixture of flashing teeth, an innocent air, and hands that refuses to behave. "Of course, Kagome-sama, love is my religion."

She believes him when he murmurs wonderful lies of forever and timelessness. He's the one who is dying, so she allows him his dreams; she allows him his fairytale of a simple life and a daughter that looks like her. He needs the faith in a happily ever after to get through to the next sunrise. He needs something to cling to, and Kagome lets him keep his hopelessly romantic visions of the future. Just like her friends need her to be weak, Miroku needs her to be his. He needs her optimistic outlook to compliment his rose-tinted world of tomorrow.

Nevertheless, reality tends to rear its ugly head; and even Miroku can't ignore it forever.

"I will die, and you will mourn me," he says, brooking no argument as he watches the tears skate down her cheeks. He watches the tears; absently wiping them away with his thumbs as his kisses her. "I will die, Kagome, and you will live until there is nothing to live for."

Death is in his palm, and love shines in his eyes as his pulse slows to a thrum. He loves every woman like they are precious, like they can change his fate simply by being with him and holding him when the end comes. It's not a trick, and it isn't a lie. To Miroku, they are precious, and simply by being in his memories, they will be by his side. Even as he holds her, whispering sweet words into her hair, he is holding each and every one of them in his arms. His many loves make a difference. They are all epic, and they are all pure.

"I love you," he chokes out, his fingers tightening as he buries his face in the crook of her neck. "I'll always love you."

Here today, gone tomorrow.

Love is fleeting, as is life.

Yes, and when the music fades and she's left on the deserted dance floor, Kagome can believe that the little girl that looks like her and Miroku's promises of forever weren't so far-fetched after all.

END


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